Friday, 6 January 2017

Wholly smoke

This post is a contribution to The Session #119, hosted by Alec at Mostly About Beer. The topic is 'Discomfort beer' - "which/what kind of beers took you out of your comfort zones. Beers you weren’t sure whether you didn’t like, or whether you just needed to adjust to."

I’m not just saying this to brag about the supremacy of my
palate – I’ve rarely felt out of my comfort zone with beer, and hardly ever
have to work hard to enjoy it. I’ve always enjoyed the taste – as a youngster,
my grandpa would occasionally slip me a tiny portion from his stubby green
lager bottles, and besides the ego boost that came from swapping Ribena for a
grown-up’s drink, it was always delicious to me. Bitterness was probably the main
appeal – my other favourite thirst quencher as a child was straight tonic
water, which makes a lot of adults wince.

There are styles that test your perception of what beer is –
acidic and sour flavours in beer took some getting used to, for example. But there
is only one traumatic incident that really sticks out in my mind, and it’s the
closest I’ve ever come to spitting out a mouthful of beer.

The brew in question was Flue Faker, a smoked lager from
Camden Town, sampled at The Craft Beer Co. in Brighton some years ago – thank
God I asked for a taster first. I don’t remember it tasting of bacon, the
common descriptor for the niche lager sub-genre known as rauchbier. I just
remember it tasting disgusting and wrong. “Urgh! No!” I exclaimed to the
blank-faced barman, unable to disguise my horror.

I’m not sure how I went from this unpleasant experience to
continually pestering my girlfriend about visiting Bamberg, home of the rauchbier
style. I’d read about the beer in books
by Michael Jackson and Mark Dredge in the meantime, putting it in some context,
which probably encouraged me to persevere and learn to like it. In fact, rauchbier
is probably the ultimate discomfort beer. In Jeff Alworth’s The Beer Bible, Schlenkerla boss Matthias
Trum says;

“At the first sip, the
smoke flavour is extremely dominant on your palate. If you’re new to this
taste, you will notice nothing but the smoked flavour. Only as you go through
your first two or three pints does the smokiness step back in perception and
then the malty notes come out, the bitterness, the smoothness.”

On my visit to the Schlenkerla pub, I do remember remarking
that their famous marzen was a brilliant lager underneath the smoke, and this
aspect is probably worthy of further contemplation. However, I love that smoky flavour – that’s the
appeal of the beer, not a challenge to be overcome. As such, it’s rare that
I’ll ever drink more than one rauchbier on the trot. So, I decided to do just
that, and procured three bottles of Schlenkerla marzen.

Even on the first mouthful of the first glass, I realised
that the intensity of the smoke didn’t hit me in the way it used to. I’ve heard
of a ‘lupulin threshold shift’, the idea that we build up a ‘tolerance’ to hop
bitterness, and perhaps there’s something similar going on here with smoked
malt. I think I’ve drunk this beer often enough that I’m just used to it, which
slightly undermines the idea behind this ‘experiment’. Not to say it isn’t
smoky – it certainly is. I’d say it tastes like bacon, but as I haven’t eaten
bacon in over a decade, I’ll say it tastes like bacon flavoured WheatCrunchies. The bitterness is notable from the outset, something like the
slightly acrid malt-derived bitterness you sometimes get in stouts and porters.

Around a quarter of the way into the second glass, the smoke
flavour has really faded. It registers mainly as a background savoury flavour,
with occasional bursts of bonfire and meat on the palate. I’m starting to
notice a bready malt quality too, which in combination with the bitterness
suggests slightly burnt wholemeal toast. As interesting as it is to draw out the
backgrounds elements of the bee, for me the most exciting moments are still those
flashes of smoke.

By the final glass, the prickly carbonation is starting to
irritate, putting an obstacle in the way of the smoothness Matthias Trum
suggests is waiting beneath the smoke. It feels like it should be silky, but that fizz jabs at my tongue. I’ve never had a
problem with the carbonation in bottles before, but the accumulative effect is
distracting. The traditional gravity-tapped serving method would solve this
problem, of course. Towards the end, I’m beginning to notice a woody, tannic
element. Further complexity clearly awaits, and I’d probably have opened a
fourth bottle if I’d had one. Who knew that a beer style I first found so
challenging would prove so sessionable?

The interesting thing about all this is that, now that I’m
past the discomfort stage, I miss it. It’s like watching a difficult film for
the second or third time – I’m always jealous of those experiencing it fresh.
Those who are new to rauchbier shouldn’t hold their nose and joylessly gulp
down the first few pints, waiting for the smoke to fade – they should revel in
the discomfort and enjoy the challenge.